


air pocket

by envysparkler



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Broken Bones, Enemy to Caretaker, Gen, Good Sibling Tim Drake, Hurt Jason Todd, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Trapped, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27575426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler
Summary: Being trapped under a half-collapsed building was not fun.  Being trapped under a half-collapsed building with theRed Hoodwas so far from fun it wasn’t even in the same dictionary.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 78
Kudos: 1133
Collections: Jason and Tim Enemy-to-Caretaker





	air pocket

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, look, yet another Jason-is-trapped-under-a-building fic.

The building was halfway through construction, a looming skeleton of metal girders and exposed beams that provided a plethora of hiding places for any bat or bird, and was probably the only reason that the operation hadn’t dissolved into a fistfight the moment they’d all shown up.

The weapons suppliers were from a case that Batman was working on, the shipment was arriving via Bludhaven, and the drug runners were apparently from one of the Crime Alley gangs Red Hood didn’t control.

The surprise in everyone’s postures as they lurked in the scaffolding had been almost comical.

But Hood had thrown himself into the fray without waiting for anyone, Nightwing had followed after him, and Batman had ordered Tim to stay far from the fight before he went after the shipment.

Tim resented the order. Sure, Hood went for his throat every time they were within a mile radius of each other, but he was clearly distracted and there was nothing stopping Tim from sneaking onto one of the abandoned, half-finished floors to rifle through the paperwork to figure out who the guns were being supplied to, and where the money was coming from. It all came down to the bank accounts. Money was what made the world go round, and Tim just had to follow the trail to –

A stillness in the air. Tim slowly lifted his head, and swallowed when he met the white slits of the red helmet. The commotion of the fight was growing below them, but it looked like Hood had the same idea that Tim did.

Before Tim could back away, or run, or snap out his staff, Nightwing’s frantic voice cut across the comm, “Bomb!”

Unfortunately, there was no time to get out – the floor shuddered beneath them, and Tim immediately searched for a stable point to grapple to – only to see two hundred pounds of angry murderer lunging in his direction.

Tim lost his grip on the grapple gun, fumbled for his staff, and huffed out a breathless squeak of terror as Hood slammed into him a second before the whole building came down.

He registered falling, registered the world going dark outside his whiteout lenses as it dissolved into screams and shouts and the groaning roar of metal falling apart, and registered hitting the ground.

_Hard_.

The only saving grace was that he’d apparently landed on Hood, who made one harsh, mechanized wheeze before Tim tore himself out of the man’s grasp, willing to take his chances with the rubble.

The dust was thick and choking, the air dark and clouded around them, and Tim scurried back as far as he could – until exposed metal beams bit into his back – and struggled to draw a breath.

The final fragments of the now-ruined building settled into place with a low creak.

“Nightwing,” Tim tapped his comm, “I got caught in the explosion. Don’t know where I am.” He paused and squinted at the darkness, before whispering, “Hood’s here too.”

There was no response.

“Nightwing?” Tim asked, his voice ticking higher, “Batman?”

Nothing, not even static.

Tim cursed and fumbled the comm out of his ear before hesitating – he cast a wary look into the darkness and reached for a glowstick.

The _snap_ of the stick was followed by dim orange light, glimmering off of the dust still hanging in the air and illuminating the little pocket of space with a sickly sheen. The space wasn’t entirely closed in – Tim could see jagged corners and some of the rubble was small enough to be easily shifted – and it wasn’t very large, only seven feet wide at the max, and currently half-occupied by the heavily armored body lying motionless in the center.

Tim kept the corner of his gaze on Hood as he tried to examine the comm in the dim light. Nothing was visibly wrong with it, and he didn’t have the tools to take a closer look. “N? B?” he tried again, before hitting the switch that should’ve theoretically tuned it to the emergency Clocktower line. “Oracle?”

Still nothing.

Hood hadn’t moved an inch.

Okay. Comms were down. Explosions were nothing new in Gotham. He knew the drill. First, check if he was injured.

Tim did a slow stretch, purposefully shifting each of his limbs and running a gloved hand through his hair. No blood, no bumps, some bruises, but nothing registering as the sharp pulse of a break. The ache in his chest was probably a couple of cracked ribs, though.

Okay, next step. Running through his supplies and –

No. The next step wasn’t running through his supplies. The next step was checking if anyone else was injured.

Tim swallowed. He hated Hood, and he was terrified of Hood, but he didn’t want the man _dead_. “Hood?” Tim called out, shifting to balance on the balls of his feet and ready to defend himself if Hood jumped up swinging. “Hood, can you hear me?”

No response. Not even the low wheeze of an exhale, but the helmet was a good muffler. Tim shifted closer, but the body armor made it difficult to tell if Hood was still breathing.

“Hood?”

Tim dared to reach a little closer. The man hadn’t moved since they’d hit the ground – he was on his back, left arm lying at a strange angle, right arm slung across his chest, helmet tilted slightly to the side.

In Tim’s experience, lack of movement meant something was very wrong. Spine crushed in the fall – head injury – or maybe he was already _dead_ , maybe Tim was freaking out about being trapped with the Red Hood but he was actually trapped with a corpse –

Tim carefully wrapped two fingers around Hood’s wrist, below the glove, and hoped they didn’t get snapped. Hood’s heartbeat pulsed against his fingers after one heart-stopping moment of stillness, and Tim let out a deep breath.

Hood was alive. Pulse wasn’t thready – it was a bit too fast, but at least it wasn’t shock.

“Hood?” Tim called out again, nudging the man’s shoulder in what could’ve probably been called a poke, if Tim hadn’t retreated the second his finger touched the leather jacket.

Still nothing.

Head injury was growing more likely by the second. Tim took a deep breath and shifted forward until he was crouching near Hood’s head. He had to get the helmet off to assess the damage. Hood had been unresponsive for over a minute.

Praying that Hood wouldn’t take this out of his hide the next time he saw him, Tim warily reached for the latches on the helmet, delicately feeling around the edges and –

A sudden grip tightened around his wrist. Tim froze. He hadn’t even seen the man _move_.

“It’ll shock anyone who takes it off wrong,” the distorted voice said. Tim stayed where he was, very, very still, as Hood reached past him to press at the edge of the helmet in a pattern before the latches clicked. The helmet was clawed off none-too-gently, and Tim was now only inches away from the scowl on Hood’s face.

His hair was mussed, the white bleeding into black, red domino coming unstuck at one corner, and Tim was still waiting for the retaliation because the last time he’d been this close to Hood, the man had _slit his throat_ and –

Hood wasn’t stirring. He’d dropped his hand back on the ground, and made no other movement.

_Shit_. It was a head injury then.

“What are you doing?” Hood asked when Tim’s fingers were an inch away from his mask – and Tim hadn’t realized how much emotion the voice distorter had smoothed out to mechanized anger. Hood sounded annoyed, yes, but he also sounded…tired.

“Concussion,” Tim’s tongue unstuck enough for him to say, “I mean, I need to check if you have a concussion.”

“I don’t have a concussion.”

“You fell three storeys.”

“So did you,” Hood drawled, “Besides, that’s what the helmet is for. To protect my head.”

“Just because you’re wearing a helmet doesn’t mean you can’t get a concussion, that’s actually not a –”

Hood made a low groan that sounded a lot like _‘oh my god’_. “I don’t have a concussion!” he snarled.

Tim jerked back at the sudden surge of rage in his tone, skittering back two steps before he realized that Hood hadn’t moved.

“You weren’t responding,” Tim said slowly, “If you lost consciousness, then –”

“I didn’t lose consciousness,” Hood said flatly.

Tim stared at him for a long moment before it clicked. “You were _ignoring_ me?” Hood decided to give a demonstration in lieu of an answer and Tim’s fingers itched with the urge to shake him. “You’re an asshole.”

Hood’s lips twitched.

“Where are you injured?” Tim snapped, moving away from Hood’s head to scan the rest of the body. He couldn’t see any blood, but half of Hood’s outfit was red and the orange glowstick was dying quickly.

“I’m not injured.”

Tim didn’t bother to stifle his snort.

“What is it?” he asked, eyeing Hood with a critical eye, “Your spine?” A chill swept through him at the thought.

“I’m _fine_.”

“If you were fine, you’d be strangling me right now. Where are you injured?”

“Do you _want_ me to strangle you? Because it’s still on the table, Replacement.”

Tim took the gamble, leaning forward to hover in Hood’s sightline, in easy reach, with a deeply unimpressed look.

Hood’s expression twisted, “You little _shit_.”

“Is it your spine?”

“My spine’s fine,” Hood groaned, “Don’t you have anything better to be doing? Like finding a way out? Or calling Daddy Bats for a pick-up?”

“Move your feet,” Tim ordered, leaning back to scan the way Hood had fallen. His left arm was definitely broken, and judging by the way the leather jacket was hanging, his shoulder was probably dislocated. Hood had only moved his right arm so far, and his body was immobile with the slackness that came from being limp, not the tension of freezing still.

“Christ, Replacement,” Hood groaned, but both his boots twitched, one after the other, “Seriously, can’t you pester Nightwing instead?”

Tim frowned. Not the spine, then. But something was definitely wrong. Hood wasn’t moving, and he was being oddly accommodating – his voice lacked the bite of fury it always had, the tension gone like it was fighting something else.

“Comm line’s down,” Tim said absently, before he realized that that might not have been the best information to convey to a man who’d tried to murder him once already. Hood merely exhaled slowly, though, and showed no sign of shifting.

“Figures,” Hood said softly – Tim darted his gaze towards the man’s face, but he was staring straight up, into the crisscrossed beams that served as their low ceiling.

“What’s wrong with you?” Tim asked, unease growing stronger.

Hood barked out a short, startled laugh. “What _isn’t_ wrong with me, kid?” Hood sneered, “Didn’t the old man give you the rundown of all my biggest failures?”

Tim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I meant,” he said flatly, “What happened? You’re barely moving. You haven’t threatened to shoot me once. You’re deflecting, but you’re being really bad at it.”

“Ouch,” Hood said. Tim glared. “Why do you even care, Replacement?”

“It’s my job,” Tim snapped.

A bitter smile slowly stretched across Hood’s face. “Of course it is,” he said softly, “ _Robin_.” The name felt like a slap in the face and Tim actually rocked back from the tangle of hurt and frustration in Hood’s tone. There was a long, stretching silence. “Shattered my left hip,” Hood said finally.

Tim did a double take, and scanned Hood in light of the new information. That – that definitely explained why he wasn’t moving. “Are you sure?” Tim asked automatically.

“Trust me,” Hood said with an unamused chuckle, “I know what it feels like.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have landed on it,” Tim said uncharitably, flushing slightly with guilt as he remembered falling on top of Hood. But that wasn’t his fault, Hood had been the one who’d lunged at him.

Tim pointedly turned his back on the other vigilante and began exploring the pocket of space they were trapped in. He had another handful of glowsticks, some assorted vials, and his backup grapple gun, but if his comm wasn’t working, the priority was finding a way out, or at least a way to call for help.

There. A slight breeze tugging at him. Tim started shifting through the rubble, taking periodic glances to reassure himself Hood hadn’t moved or twitched towards a gun and wasn’t looming over Tim with a knife.

Within a couple of minutes, he’d widened a hole large enough to squeeze through, a network of fallen beams stretching out in front of him like a jagged puzzle. Tim cast one last look at Hood before easing himself into the small space.

It was a tight fit, but Tim managed to contort himself past the snapped piece of rebar jutting across his path and the latticework of fallen beams was much easier to traverse. The stability of the whole mess was in question, but Tim felt fairly confident that he could pick his way through the remaining rubble to reach the night sky twinkling past the steel beams.

He could even do it right now, he was already a quarter of the way through, he could get out and call Batman and Nightwing and find help and –

Tim clenched his jaw so tightly that his teeth ached, and shifted to eel back the way he’d come.

He wiggled back into the air pocket in a move that felt extremely undignified, and immediately tensed, waiting for a bullet in his unguarded back, or the slash of a knife, or an inexorable pressure digging into his spine.

No attack came. The only sound in the pocket was harsh breathing and choked-off sobs and Tim warily uncurled and cracked alight another glowstick. The orange light filled the small space, illuminating Hood – who hadn’t moved an inch since Tim had last seen him, one gloved hand tensed into a fist so tight that it had to be painful, and –

And _Hood_ was the one breathing like he’d just finished a marathon, ragged and shallow and too-fast, hovering on the edge of breaking down entirely. Tim was moving before he made a conscious decision, crouching at the older boy’s side. “Hood?” Tim asked, hesitating before laying a careful hand on an uninjured shoulder. “Hood?”

Hood’s face snapped towards him so fast that Tim tore his hand off and nearly fell back on his ass. “Rob – _Replacement_ ,” Hood said, and the name couldn’t disguise the sheer relief in his tone, “You’re still here.”

“Yes, I –” Tim cut off as a painful thought occurred to him – “Did you think I was going to _leave_ you here?”

Hood didn’t answer, but his face was pale, even accounting for the sickly light. Tim swallowed – he hadn’t dared get close enough to properly assess Hood’s injuries, and now the guilt was coming back to eat at him.

What if Hood was seriously injured? Just because he could move his feet didn’t mean nothing was wrong with his spine, and the fact that he’d _volunteered_ that he’d shattered his hip probably meant he was hiding something bigger, something _worse_ , and, oh god, Tim had just left him here – alone, under an _exploded warehouse_ , oh no –

“Can I check to see if you have any other injuries?” Tim asked quietly, cognizant that Hood still had both his guns and one working arm.

“What?”

“Can I please check to see if you have any other injuries?” Tim repeated, creeping closer. Even without the helmet, he couldn’t read Hood’s emotions, his face eerily blank under the domino.

“Knock yourself out,” Hood said finally, and Tim shifted forward.

He was careful, keeping his movements slow and gentle, stilling whenever there was a bitten-off curse or a hitched breath. Hood’s right side had escaped more-or-less unscathed, but his _left_ – Tim counted a broken arm, dislocated shoulder, three broken ribs, _something_ broken in his foot, and the blunt of the impact had clearly been borne by his hip and pelvis, because Hood couldn’t entirely strangle his scream when Tim fluttered careful fingers over it.

Tim yanked his fingers back and tried to remember how to breathe. The contents of his field medkit wouldn’t help with shattered bone. Not to mention any internal injuries that Tim couldn’t diagnose.

“How can you tell if you’re internally bleeding?” Tim whispered.

Hood made a rusty chuckle. “Kid, if I’m bleeding internally, I’m a dead man breathing.” Tim sighed, because he knew it was coming. “Oh, _wait_.”

“I’m glad you think this is funny,” Tim muttered, glaring. “And I found a way out –” he hesitated, because Hood hadn’t even _tried_ to move – “If you’re up for it.”

Hood was silent for a long moment. “I highly doubt it,” he said finally, his voice too quiet to be anything but serious, “But you should go. Get out.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Tim said, and suppressed the rest of the words – _not here, not underground, not trapped in the rubble of an explosion, goddammit Jason, I saw the cowl footage, I know you were still alive when Bruce found you_ –

“Why not, Replacement? I would’ve done the same for you.”

Tim sat back on his heels and studied what little he could see of Jason’s face. It was the first opportunity he had to actually _look_ at his predecessor – this was the first time since Jason had come back that he wasn’t attacking Tim.

Like he’d attacked him in the office.

Tim remembered the heavy jolt of Hood slamming into him, remembered arms wrapping around him, remembered hitting the ground three storeys below them with far less force than he’d been expecting.

“No,” Tim said quietly, “You wouldn’t.”

Jason’s expression shifted, twisting to flicker through emotions too fast for Tim to see, before settling to a roiling blankness. “So, what? We’re going to hang out here, holding hands and singing songs?” he sneered.

Tim crept back to Jason’s uninjured side and took a deep breath before reaching for Jason’s right hand. It spasmed when Tim curled his fingers into it, going slack for a stretching moment before it tightened, quickly and painfully, and Tim had to resist the urge to tear his hand away.

Uncomfortable, painful, but his fingers remained in one piece. Tim managed a reassuring squeeze. “You probably don’t want to hear me try to sing,” Tim offered, and Jason made a startled sound that was almost a laugh.

Jason tightened his grip – painful tipping to unbearable for a split second – before it loosened, fingers going limp. “Get out, baby bird,” Jason said wearily, “Call for help. Get the professionals to clear the rubble.”

“Hood,” Tim said, “If the cops find you here –”

“I’m well aware of my looming appointment at Arkham,” Jason said, words too raw to be the sneer he was aiming for, “It doesn’t matter if they find me here, or they find me in two days.” He waved a hand in the general direction of his injuries, “Red Hood is pretty much done for.”

Resignation and despair, imperfectly smothering fear.

“And that’s _it_?” Tim hissed, “You’re just giving up? One setback, and you’re done? You said you’ve had these injuries before, so why –”

“Tim,” Jason cut him off quietly, “Last time I had this many broken bones, I died.”

Tim almost choked. He – he had read the autopsy report once, pale and wavering, and had immediately run to throw up when he finished, because the sheer _number_ of injures received pre-mortem –

“You’re not dying,” Tim said, eyes narrowing in determination, “And you’re not going to Arkham. We’re getting out of here.”

“And how are we going to do that, baby bird?” Jason asked sardonically.

Tim didn’t answer, already moving towards the small hole he’d dug out. The path he’d found stretched too high and too tight for Jason to be able to make it out, so he just needed to find an alternative one.

There were already searchlights sweeping through the rubble, and Tim froze for a moment – if they found him, they’d find Hood – but Tim couldn’t drag the older boy through the rubble all by himself – Gordon’s stance on the Red Hood had been made explicitly clear after the whole duffel bag of heads incident – but Jason needed a hospital, this wasn’t something he could just walk off –

“Here!” Tim called out, lighting a couple of glowsticks. The searchlights paused, and swept back to him. “Over here!” he repeated, wedging the glowsticks in easy view before squeezing back into the air pocket.

“Come on,” Tim said, yanking at the holsters on Jason’s belt, “We need to get you out of this.”

“Replacement, what are you doing?” Fingers tightened around his wrist, hard enough to be a warning.

“You’re right,” Tim raised his head to meet Jason’s gaze, “You need them to come and get you out. But they’re not going to be rescuing the _Red Hood_.” He pulled the holsters off and moved to the body armor.

“Right, because random person trespassing on a construction site in the middle of a deal gone wrong is _so_ much better,” Jason grumbled, but he unsealed his mask and helped Tim with the catches on his body armor. “Kneepads,” he said, fumbling with his belt, “And there’s gear in my pockets.”

Tim ended up sawing some of armor off – under Jason’s glare – and soon they had a pile of weapons and gear, topped by Jason’s red helmet. “Anything else questionable?” Tim asked.

Jason’s skin had turned ashen under the exertion of getting out of his gear, and his vibrant green eyes had slid half-shut. “Don’t think so,” he muttered. Without the body armor, he looked much less intimidating, especially half-curled to minimize the strain on his broken bones.

The distant sound of voices and scraping rubble was getting much closer, and Tim shoved the gear underneath some loose rubble before going back to the tunnel he’d carved out. “Over here!” he called, and the lights swung his way, maybe fifteen feet away.

“Robin,” one of the rescue personnel called back, “Are you alone?”

“No, I have an injured civilian here,” Tim answered, waiting for their confirmation before sliding back to Jason’s side.

Jason’s breathing had become shallow again, and Tim gripped his hand tight as they waited for the rescuers to make their way into their little pocket. Thankfully, Jason didn’t lash out as they checked him over – Tim had a sinking feeling that the acquiescence had more to do with the amount of pain Jason was in rather than any real desire to hold fast to a civilian disguise.

Tim waited until the rescuers eased Jason out, strapped to a stretcher, before he used his cape to grab the pile of gear and conceal it as he clambered out behind them. There were a few flashing sirens in the distance, and a familiar figure broke away from the knot of cops and made their way towards him.

Nightwing and Batman were nowhere to be seen. Tim hoped that meant they’d already gotten out.

“Robin,” Gordon said, sparing a distracted half-glance for Jason – the older boy was quickly dropping out of lucidity, his blinks getting slower and longer – before he turned towards Tim, “Batman was looking for you.”

“I’ll get back to him,” Tim said, awkwardly holding the bag of armor and guns behind him.

“Who’s this?” Gordon asked, drifting closer to Jason.

“Unlucky bystander,” Tim answered quickly. He didn’t want to see Jason’s reaction if he woke up cuffed to a hospital bed.

“Name?”

There was a sliver of green visible behind slowly closing eyelids.

Tim’s mouth replied on instinct, bypassing his brain and any drop of common sense, “Jason Todd.”

Jason’s eyes slid all the way shut.

The paramedics didn’t bother with a double-take, too focused on getting Jason in the ambulance, but Gordon’s eyebrows crawled up his face as he turned to check.

Tim could see the exact moment when Gordon recognized Jason, because skepticism washed out into disbelief and straight-up confusion.

“Jason Todd,” Gordon said slowly, “Is supposed to be dead.”

Tim mentally castigated himself – Jason had to have fake IDs, Tim should’ve kept his mouth shut, they would’ve called him a John Doe until he woke up and gave them identification – but doubled down, “Well, I guess he’s not?”

Not his most convincing statement. Tim fled before Gordon turned back, or asked him what he was carrying.

* * *

Jason woke slowly – bad sign – and felt floaty – even _worse_ sign – and cracked open gummy eyes to see the low, flashing line of a heart monitor, a clear IV bag snaking into his right arm, and the outlines of bulky casts under the sheets.

_Hospital_ , something told him dimly. It was the first time he’d been to a hospital in his life – Leslie’s clinic, the Cave medbay, and the bathroom of his safehouse didn’t compare.

Case in point – the IV line was definitely pumping in the good drugs, because he didn’t even flinch when he registered the other occupants of his room.

The smallest and least offensive was the mop of black hair slouched over a laptop, back towards Jason as he sat crisscross on Jason’s bed. Jason couldn’t keep pretending that he hated the Replacement, not after his first, instinctive thought when he felt the floor shudder beneath them had been to grab the kid.

Jason managed to poke the Replacement in the side, and Tim flailed in sudden surprise, nearly tipping off the bed before Jason caught his wrist. The kid twisted, held awkwardly in Jason’s grip, and blinked wide eyes at him.

“You’re awake!”

Way to state the obvious there, Replacement. “Where am I?” Jason asked, wincing when his voice cracked out in a dry rasp.

“Gotham General,” Tim said, “Private ward. Dick stepped out to get something to eat –” he squinted at his watch, “A long time ago. Probably got cornered by the reporters.”

“Reporters,” Jason repeated. Half of his mind was still stuck underground, trapped under the metal skeleton of a building, and it wasn’t helped by the eerie dissonance of the offensively bright hospital room.

“I’m sorry,” the kid squeaked, “I panicked, and then Gordon saw you, and then the reporters got wind of it, and it was too late to sneak in your other IDs.”

Jason cast another glance over his hospital room with this new information. Private ward. Large room, flowers on his bedside table, bed big enough for even Dick to hop up on if he wanted. Billionaire sleeping in the corner, hunched awkwardly across a couple of chairs.

It felt like a dream. It felt like the dream Jason had had so many times before, that he’d gotten out, the door wasn’t locked, the explosion never burned him alive, that he’d passed out and woken up in a hospital surrounded by his family, hurt and exhausted and scared but _alive_.

“Jason?” Tim asked slowly, “Are you okay?”

Jason kept his gaze on Tim, on the evidence that the last three years of his life hadn’t been one long fever dream, and exhaled slowly. “What happened?” he asked, suppressing how much it rankled at him.

He didn’t want to depend on the Bats for a cover story, he didn’t _want_ to be Jason Todd-Wayne, and he absolutely didn’t want the media circus over him coming back from the dead.

Unfortunately, Jason could also see that he didn’t have much of a choice. Whatever he was on was doing a fantastic job of keeping him floaty enough that he didn’t feel the pain, but nearly half his body was wrapped in a cast. He wouldn’t even be able to make it out the window.

“The cops found you in the rubble of a collapsed building,” Tim said, “With – with Robin.” He paused, giving Jason a side-eyed look, but Jason didn’t respond. “Um, so Gordon called Bruce, because all your files were sealed when Bruce adopted you, and the DNA tests and fingerprints matched the ones on file, so, uh. Congratulations on not being dead.”

Tim hesitated for a moment, darting a quick glance towards Bruce before he leaned closer to Jason. “I have all your gear,” he said quietly, “Stashed it in the Cave.”

His gear. The Red Hood. The security blanket he’d wrapped around himself to shield him from his past, both good and bad. And it had been next to useless when he’d been trapped under a collapsed building with shattered bone, the helmet and guns and armor doing _nothing_ to stop him from catapulting back into the fifteen-year-old that had died screaming for his dad.

Jason’s gaze slowly shifted until he was staring at Bruce. He doubted that the man was actually asleep, but the dark circles under his eyes were extremely convincing.

Wasn’t this what he wanted? A sign that his family actually _cared_? Some indication that they had actually wanted him, that he was missed, that he was still Bruce’s son?

_It’s only because of the reporters_ , a part of his mind hissed, _it’s a façade_. Just another one of Bruce’s stupid personas, a mask hiding who he really was from the world. His identity had accidentally been revealed, and they were just trying to mitigate the damage.

Tim was looking at him warily, like he wasn’t sure if Jason would start yelling or start crying, and Jason slumped back against the pillows and let out a slow breath. He could let himself pretend, for just a little while longer.

If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up.

It was actually kind of funny, Jason thought, his eyelids getting heavier – he’d died in one explosion, and came back to life in the next.

**Author's Note:**

> Jason and Bruce finally have their long-overdue conversation during his recovery at the Manor, and manage to make it through with minimal bloodshed. Alfred is not impressed with the knives sticking out of the dining room wall, and even less impressed with the bowl of soup that Bruce is wearing as a hat.


End file.
